Six down. Two to go.
On Thursday night in Beijing, American swimmer Michael Phelps got one step closer to breaking Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in one Olympiad, winning his sixth gold medal of the 2008 Summer Games.
The Baltimore native touched first in the men’s 200 individual medley, again in world record time, in a time of 1:54.23, again in dominant fashion.
But tonight, when Phelps swims in the 100-meter butterfly, he will face his most formidable opponent — American Ian Crocker, the world record holder in the event.
It’s not a situation Phelps has had to deal with this week. In claiming each of his four individual gold medals, Phelps has broken his own world records.
Unlike Phelps, 23, who will swim 17 times in eight days, Crocker, 25, is rested because the 100 butterfly is his lone event. Tonight is not only his opportunity to spoil the dream of his countryman, but to make his own history.
“If the world record holder wakes up and decides not to feel sorry for himself, Phelps could have a hard time in the 100 fly,” Spitz said before the Olympics. “The way I see it, that’s the most difficult hurdle he’s got.”
Head to head, Phelps has a mental edge, defeating Crocker by inches in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and at last summer’s World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, where Phelps won seven gold medals.
But Crocker also has had his moments — such as the 2005 World Championships, where the Portland, Maine, native edged Phelps in the 100 butterfly, turning in his world record time of 50.40 seconds, which still stands.
“Theoretically the [100 butterfly] is probably one of the hardest,” Phelps said before the games. “It’s the shortest and I’m going up against the best in that event, and he’s got my number.”
But the number that most drives Phelps is eight.
If he can beat Crocker tonight, Phelps will go for an unprecedented eighth gold medal in the games — and 14th total — Saturday night in the 4×100 medley relay, a race the U.S. owns. Since the event started in the Olympics in 1960, America is undefeated. The only country other than the U.S. to claim Olympic gold in the relay is Australia, which won in 1980, the year America boycotted the Moscow games.
The seventh of Spitz’s gold medals came in the 4×100 medley relay at Munich, Germany, in 1972. Spitz swam the butterfly leg, also Phelps’ best stroke.
“For the last five years he’s been living with the middle name of ‘Mark Spitz,’ ” Spitz said earlier this summer. “It would be folly to say he’s not going to be able to do it. And frankly, how could this be bad? I obviously had to be the inspiration for it.”
